Daynote - Wed 18 Mar 2026
Plugging away, every day.
Didn't make it out this morning, thanks to a minor reoccurrence of my foot injury. Very annoying indeed. But I got a bit more time to write, so it wasn't all bad.
ON DECK: A solid 1,067 words on VAULT this morning, followed by 374 words on the short story, for a total of 1,441 words for the day. Not too bad!
TOOLS AND PROCESS: I'm in the final 20-30,000 words of VAULT, which is the 'oh man, how the hell am I going to land this plane' part of a novel-length project. And there's a lot of stuff to stuff into the metaphorical plane and get back down to earth. But I'm just trusting the process, such as it is, and keeping going.
LISTENING: I enjoyed this interview with screenwriter Drew Goddard on Scriptnotes, talking about 'beats vs scenes' in the context of his work on both THE MARTIAN and PROJECT HAIL MARY.
WATCHING: Another episode of TRUE DETECTIVE last night, we're rationing them out because they're so good. Just terrific stuff that holds up 12 years after it first came out.
READING: Heading into the final third of THE INFINITE STATE by Richard Swan (Bookshop.org, Waterstones, Amazon) and loving it. No idea where it's headed but some kind of showdown seems inevitable.
LINK: I enjoyed Emma Darwin's piece on getting past the 'ugly duckling' phase of your writing career, i.e. producing enough work that you get to the point of creating publishable work. The short answer is basically 'write more', but Emma's post has a lot of very good, actionable steps for novice writers.
UP NEXT: Moving through the draft at a steady pace, and not doing much else at the moment. Some weeks are just for plodding forwards.
Onwards!